Alerus Gang Runs Propaganda Ad
The Alerus Commission ran an ad in the Grand Forks Herald last week the same day the story came out about their massive loss of over a million dollars. I think it’s funny that they felt they needed to get their side of the story out because the apologists at the Herald ran the story as favorable to the Alerus Center as they could.
Here’s what the ad looks like:
This full-page ad was placed opposite of the editorial page, which for their purposes was the prime space. I don’t think that page normally has
I spoke to a friend of mine who’s in the advertising business. He said by their rate card that would be a VERY expensive ad. The rate card rate for a full page ad is $3,726. However he said to get prime space like they got you might have to pay a 30% premium.
That ad was worth a lot of money. Since they are living on subsidies and borrowing from the city to cover their deficits that’s money out of the publics pocket one way or another.
Now the reporter that covers the Alerus, almost always in their favor, was asked about how much that cost us. At first he treated that legitimate question as an attack on his integrity. But when it was pointed out that it was a legitimate question he said this:
In fact, I actually did ask Alerus Center people what they paid for the ad. When they mentioned the ad, the first thing I said was I’m not sure taxpayers would be so keen on them spending tax dollars that way.
I’ve been reluctant to mention what their reply because it involves my employer. But, since they said it, I guess there’s no harm in passing on.
Do you know what they said? It costs nothing. It was a trade: our ads in the arena for their ads.
Is the Alerus Commission clueless or do they think we are that gullible?
Just because you trade for something doesn’t mean it’s free. In this case there are a number of ways to value what was spent. But it comes down to it what was the opportunity cost of what they gave up. When a business buys an ad they are hoping for something more valuable in return. In this case they could have used that ad space to sell some tickets to cut the losses at the center. I don’t know what the best way to advertise for a concert, but certainly the money losing Neil Diamond concert needed more promotion to sell tickets.
Instead the Alerus Commission spent that money to help themselves. They figured that they could spin the financial disaster that they brought on us that it would take some heat off of themselves. How selfish is that. In fact if they were doing their jobs competently they wouldn’t have to explain away all of these losses.
Of course wasting an asset like that newspaper ad which was only worth four or five thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket compared the problems they’ve created, but it shows that we have the wrong people overseeing the Alerus.
As you might have figured out I’m spreading my posts on the Alerus out a bit. You could accuse me of blogging on old news but since this news isn’t getting reported in the rest of the media that really doesn’t matter. There are so many things wrong with the operation of the Alerus that an omnibus post about them would be pretty boring.
I think I’m better off coming back to this subject every day or two and touch on one part of the disaster that is the Alerus Center.
